In a significant ruling, the Supreme Court of India stated that governments cannot take over all private properties under the guise of public welfare. The court has overturned a previous order that defined private land as public property.
However, it also noted that some private lands could still be evaluated for public use. This decision came from a nine-member bench led by the Chief Justice, which rejected the earlier ruling by a bench under Justice V. R. Krishna Iyer that classified private lands as public property. The seven members of the constitutional bench indicated that the 1978 ruling no longer stands.
